South Bay Eichler Home Tour

The upcoming home tour of four mid-century modern homes in Sunnyvale on August 15 is no big surprise. It's a simple case of great minds thinking alike-ler.

The three-person Erdal Team of realtors claims it's sold more than 250 Eichlers in the South Bay and likes to stay in touch with past clients. They are also proud of the striking improvements many of their clients have made to their Eichlers, but were disappointed that so few others knew about the range and quality of those remodels.

"We get to see them, but nobody else does," says Pelin Erdal, who handles logistics for the Erdal Team, of those improvement projects. As the Erdals began to ponder hosting a home tour, they ran their idea past Ron Key, owner of Keycon, Inc., whose general contracting firm has reportedly renovated more Eichlers than any other Bay Area contractor.

"Ron said, 'Hey, that's so funny—we were thinking of doing the same thing,'" Erdal recalls.

"So, what we decided to do was combine our two tours," Key explains of the 'Eichler Inspired Sunnyvale Home Tour,' for which advance tickets cost only $8 and are currently available online.

The self-paced driving tour, which starts with a taco lunch at Keycon offices in Mountain View, consists of four Eichler homes—two selected by the Erdal Team, two by Keycon. Each company will play host, along with the homeowners of each home.

"It was really important for us to have the homeowners there at each home," says Erdal of the four sites. "We're really fortunate that we were able to get four clients to open up their homes and share them."

Not that the reasoning behind the homes they selected were identical, though. The Erdals chose the homes on Lorne Way and on Ticonderoga Drive strictly for their admiration of the extensive improvements made to each.

"They've all made a really great effort to stay within that Eichler style, but they still reflect the tastes of the owners," says Erdal. "I think it'll be fun for people to see the different owners' styles."

In particular, Erdal says, she can't wait to show off the "amazing" entertaining area and bar that owner Dana Stern created out of the center atrium of her home on Ticonderoga.

"I designed it to be used year-round, so I installed a Rollamatic Roof. This was not an item I wanted to compromise on," Stern says in the tour pamphlet. "It's my (and my cat's) favorite room!"

Alternatively, Key chose two homes he has renovated to illustrate what can be done to an Eichler on a limited budget, although the home he included on Duncardine Way was almost a complete remodel.

"They were on a very, very strict budget," he says of the Duncardine owners. "We pretty much always stay on budget unless the owners make [mid-project] changes."

Keycon did only three rooms in the other house they chose, on Sage Court, remodeling the kitchen a couple years after two bathrooms. Also working on a tight budget, owners Mark and Beverly Kliss explained their process in their statement in the tour program.